Retro Review: This Is England

There are always movies your friends and acquaintances have seen, loved and urged you to see due to the “fact” that they are brilliant, mind-blowing, original etc. There are always movies you see that have received such praise and you happen to hate. This is not one of those.

I never saw This Is England when it came out because of a) the hype it received from my friends, b) the little I knew about it scared me off. Skinheads in Thatcher’s England. Sounds serious. But as the movie starts off you are nicely surprised. Cheerful ska greets you, an unhappy kid called Shaun (Thomas Turgoose) is picked on but then finds an odd, but agreeable, group of elders who take him in as they would a younger brother. You’re laughing, even when they take hammers to abandoned houses and pick on the fat kid. Then enters Combo (Stephen Graham), a more hardcore kind of skinhead, and tests their proclaimed ideals, ideals Shaun is new to, as well as highly impressionable.

The whole cast delivers their characters with admirable ease, Turgoose and Graham in particular, giving the film a certain documentary feel (in addition to the found footage). It helps that the dialogue is very natural, even in heightened monologues. That being said, there are some loose ends in the story, or should I say loose characters. Woody (Joseph Gilgun) seems underdeveloped as well as Lol (Vicky McClure), to name only two. Had the story followed Shaun exclusively, that would not be a problem, as the actors still deliver interesting characters, it only seems like their story got cut a little short in editing. But wanting more character screen time is not essentially a bad thing.

The film still leaves an impression. It doesn’t preach at all about the nature of nationalism, unlike e.g. American History X (an awesome movie, don’t get me wrong, but you’re hardly trusted to draw your own conclusions). It doesn’t condemn any of its characters, all of them have reasons for their actions. It’s those reasons that will keep you up. It’s that insight that makes This is England worth the hype.

Final Verdict: A compelling story told with admirable ease and confidence. Stand out performances and script will not leave you wanting, except perhaps for more.

Follow Filmophilia on Facebook and Twitter